But he wasn't back at tattoo, nor at taps. Not until eleven o'clock did Stark hear the sound of the young soldier's voice. Lawton was scratching at the tent-flap. "What is it?" shouted the captain. "It's Lawton, sir,--come to report return. I was held by those men, quite a lot of them, and simply couldn't make them understand about our discipline." "Never mind," interposed Stark. "Go to bed now and get all the sleep you can. You may need it;" and the captain rolled over on his cot, anxious to try his own prescription. But the late comer hesitated. For a moment he stood irresolute. Plainly there was something which he wanted to say to his commander. The officer of the day, lantern in hand, came along at the moment, his red sash crossed upon his broad chest. He raised the lantern and peered at the tall young soldier, whose coat and trousers looked as though they had been made for a shorter lad, and the face that was revealed seemed white and full of trouble. "I was just speaking to my captain, sir," explained the young soldier, and the officer of the day went briskly one way, the soldier, dejectedly, another. "Homesick, and wants to go and see his mother," said the officer of the day to himself. "Well, he needn't waste time pleading with Stark. Might as well talk to a stone." CHAPTER XVI. "On to Richmond," said the Northern papers. "Sweep the flag of rebellion to the Gulf!" And obedient to popular clamor, and in defiance of common sense, the Government ordered its little army--a handful of regulars and marines, three dozen regiments of State militia, or of half-drilled, unseasoned volunteers--to advance and attack an army of equal size, made up of enthusiastic Southerners as undrilled as the Northern volunteers, but the flower of their manhood, defending their own soil, in their chosen position. The July sun beat hotly down on the long column, plodding south-westward through Fairfax. Many a poor fellow fell by the wayside, unable to keep up the pace and carry his heavy burden. Many a regiment broke ranks at sight of a farm well or at mention of a spring, and scores of stragglers stopped to pick blackberries by the way, defiant of the pleadings of their officers. Some Pennsylvania militiamen, at the last moment, refused to go farther than Centreville, and, with a New York militia battery, demanded their discharge on the plea that their time had expired. Some others succeeded in persuading the authorities in individual cases, and, to the scandal of those who tried and did not succeed, turned back to Washington. Those jaunty red jackets of the drum-boys in Shorty's old regiment looked worn and tawdry by this time, and the youngster whose wrists protruded far beyond the limit of the sleeves designed for the "little un" had more than once wished the original occupant back in his old place and his successor out of it. But that drum corps had seen the last of their smallest member, and he of them, for many a day.